How To Steal Ideas Like an Artist

You read the title and thought I was talking smack. But in fact, I’m trying to give advice.

The history of the world is one of shared spaces, shared food, shared water, shared DNA, shared lives. The history of art is the same. It is a history of an evolution of ideas, of appropriation and application. Therefore, if you’re looking for inspiration, look no further than 1. inside you; and then 2. to other art work that fuels your soul. Apply your own story to what you see. Make it relevant, make it yours. Remix it all and you’re underway. Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch says it best:

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent.”

The above image plus the reminder that all of life is a collage, via the uber talented Austin Kleon.

From Seth Godin’s blog ^^^^
” … The other doesn’t hesitate to point out that I’ve never had an original idea in my life, and that I’m merely a promotional hack.”

Sound like any photographers you know ?

I’ve said for years “only steal from the best” and I’ve never had any pro disagree The secret is don’t steal and than claim to have invented it., ’cause there are old pros who have seen it come and go out of fashion several times and they may call you on it.

I don’t really hate to believe this as a photographer. All work is influenced somehow, someway and rotates in a cycle. This is true for all forms of art, or “art”. Take fashion. Pieces of fashion keep “coming back” (of course way more quickly than “real” art). It’s human nature and very hard to avoid. If an earning professional didn’t steal, or use the fancy word, “was influenced by ______”, they would be exactly the opposite, a low-life-granola-unique-free-to-be-you-and-me “artist” (ahem…Pardon my quotations, hehe)

This is so true. People “steal” ideas from each other alllll the time then act like it was their own original idea. There’s nothing wrong with getting inspiration from other’s work, just as long as you’re not a complete copycat.

As long as you mention that your project was inspired by someone than I don’t have a problem with it rather than seeing something and copying it without mentioning the source.

If I was to create something different based on the same idea than I would mention that person xyz inspired me and this would be my own interpretation. I wouldn’t go along and copy your ground control work and mark it as brand new or as my own created work. Same with tire tracks. Can’t remember who that was but steal but be honest and let people know where you got your inspiration from.

Especially true for basics too, like composition, rule of thirds, jib shots, helicopter shots, two shots, tracking shots, jump cuts, long, short, medium shots, and on and on and on. When you use these, you’re using someone else’s discovery.

And it’s no more “stealing” than using words from a dictionary is, even though you didn’t come up with the words or the concept of a sentence yourself.

Love this idea, I’ve always had the blank page syndrome and felt guilty about adapting other peoples ideas. But in the end this positive thinking is what makes things happen. I’ll never be Chase but I’m proud to state your name when people ask me about my inspiration.

Both ideas seem to have great points and I think that you have to go into both to fully appreciate and articulate art and photography. On one hand is the idea of not worrying about creating anything new and just taking what is out there and morphing it with your own flavor. On the other you have the idea that we should look less at what is out there because that is the very thing that is squashing our creativity.

Like I said, I do think there is a balance and I hate to say we just need to be in the middle because that is just about as boring as you can get, but the idea of being able to walk around with both of these perspectives in view I think gives us the best opportunity to develop our creativity and photography.

Given the context I can’t help but assume you’re making an ironic statement to be funny.

But in case you missed it – the picture is credited to austin in his own writing and right in the blog post i credit the picture, post and inspiration all to Mr. Kleon, including a link to him. He’s a hero and an inspiration, and all props are due and given to him.

“The above image plus the reminder that all of life is a collage, via the uber talented Austin Kleon.

No, I’m not being funny, I’m being very serious. I know you’ve given him credit for the image but I feel you’ve taken far more from his post than just the image and the spirit. I think the decent thing to do is link directly to his original post, call it out and sure, riff on it; but as it stands I think you’re glossing over how much of what you posted is his. As far as I can tell the only thing you added is the quote.

Imagine what it was like back in the day when the first painter painted a portrait of someone, or the first landscape artist painted the Grand Canyon. I wonder what those artist thought when they were out walking along and saw the first painting of something similar to their work and it wasn’t theirs.

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

While lounging with my 4 year old, I discovered an amazing example of this premise last weekend. These two movies, filmed over 15 years apart, are remarkably similar in plot, characters, themes, etc.
Avatar (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/) and Ferngully (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104254/). However, they are world’s apart (pun intended) in vision and execution!

Great advice Chase! There is nothing wrong in being inspired by other photographs. The world has been photographed all over, in all ways. We just have to find what we love, distill it through our vision and make it our own and unique.

I was at Memphis State when Jarmusch had recently finished “Mystery train” and I was an Art major at the school. I would enter paintings and get into the yearly school art competition. and a few shows Jarmusch and I would run into each other at the showings, I have a white streak in my hair and he has all white hair. I had no clue to who he was, other than a film professor.

What struck me as the most fun was how we went through a show once discussing some of the art and we came to my piece and he asked me way i choose what I did, and why I displayed it the way I had; Six abstract images the we to represent light and the cross that you can see when you pupil dilates down to a center…aperture. But I also told him I did it just because I knew it would get me in the show….And he laughed and said that was a good enough reason as any.

“Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent”…wow, thats strong. I never tot of it like that. Infact, I try not to reproduce things I have seen before. I try. But I allow the works of other people to inspire me to produce better work…

At what point does it then become your own? I agree with what you say to some extent. However, I feel that taking a painting (Mona Lisa) and making it look like an Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe is not exactly making it your own. My two cents.

However, if you are taking the Mona Lisa, putting her against a graffiti background, and giving her tattoos, piercings, etc, then its more original.